Nasa Ear To Space May Yet Hear Aliens

July 5, 1987|By James Fisher , Sentinel Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The supermarket tabloid Weekly World News, which once suggested that sex- starved astronauts on long missions would benefit from ''hookers,'' this year took on another space topic -- one that makes experts like John Rummel cringe. ''Respected scientist has documented proof,'' the paper announced to fans of such celebrities as Joan Collins and such subjects as the latest cancer cure. ''SPACE ALIENS ARE LIVING IN U.S.''

''No comment. I don't want to talk about UFOs,'' said Rummel, who really is a respected scientist, although certainly not the one quoted in the News story.

John Rummel is the program scientist for NASA's Search for Extra- Terrestrial Intelligence project, an ambitious sky-listening effort that has as much in common with the popular tabloid stories as Robin Leach does with Walter Cronkite.

While UFO enthusiasts swap grainy pictures of ''flying saucers,'' NASA since 1982 has been developing its SETI project as a serious effort to document scientifically the presence of other intelligent life forms.

The space agency already has developed the technology to listen for alien radio signals within the cosmic noise bombarding Earth. Scientists now hope money will come through to build the equipment needed to turn on dish antennae around the world by 1992.

Other researchers have been listening to the skies with no apparent luck, but the SETI project is so elaborate that ''the first 10 seconds of the NASA search will eclipse everything that has been done before,'' Rummel said.

Even if the antennae don't detect alien transmissions, the project's technological spinoffs will benefit medical and other research, and scientists undoubtedly will learn more about celestial phenomena, they believe.

Such is the prospect, that is, if SETI can overcome its image problem.

Sen. William Proxmire, R-Wis., heard talk about the proposed project in 1978 and promptly gave it his ''Golden Fleece Award,'' ridiculing it as a waste of taxpayers' money.

He later persuaded Congress to approve his amendment to the 1982 budget bill to prohibit money being spent on the project. Even Proxmire dropped his opposition, however, after concerned scientists explained the program and its benefits.

Today, any comparison of the project's practical goals with UFO-watching just make Rummel and others uncomfortable. ''The SETI program suffers a lot from the radical fringe,'' he said.

NASA scientists believe that the laws of physics are the key to providing the solid proof of other life forms that seems to be so elusive in UFO circles.

If an advanced society living even hundreds of light years away communicates with electronic signals, as on Earth, those waves will travel through the universe and can be picked up by listening devices here.

When operating, SETI dish antennae will scan as many as 10 million channels of microwaves. Miniaturized computer equipment will then cull any extra-terrestrial signals from the fuzz of background noise, said Kent Cullers, a SETI research scientist in Mountain View, Calif.

The computers will be looking for continuous signals as well as pulses that may be the alien equivalent of a lighthouse beacon, he said.

Within hours after identifying a signal, scientists should be able to tell whether it is from a known source or another society, Rummel said. Although scientists may not be able to understand what extra-terrestrials are saying, they'll have proof that Earthlings are not alone.

Using dish antennae in California, Spain, Puerto Rico and other sites, the SETI project will scan the entire universe for as long as seven years, listening for signals from as far as 1,000 light years away.

The project also will focus on specific stars as far as about 80 light years away, where other civilizations may be more likely. Especially important are stars within 20 light years of Earth. Television signals from Earth may already have reached them and been responded to, Cullers said.

The old joke about I Love Lucy reruns being received by another planet may be absolutely true, Cullers said. But aliens would have to have ''some kind of spiffy technology'' to be able to translate them beyond the form of an electronic beam.

UFO enthusiasts believe that aliens already have developed the technology to visit Earth, and they resent the disbelieving attitudes of the SETI scientists. Still, they support the NASA project.

''It is quite reasonable,'' said Mark Rodeghier, scientific director for the Center for UFO Studies in Chicago. ''I hope they find some'' aliens.

Rummel said he believes there is a good chance of that.

''Certainly the stuff of life appears to be of abundance in the universe,'' he said, and if Earth humans evolved through a series of chemical processes, the possibility is strong that another civilization did, too.

What might an alien look like? The SETI scientists are keeping their minds open about that, shying away from speculation.